The Best and The Worst Home Remedies to Keep in Your Medicine Cabinet

Home Remedies are like the scene in Never-ending story, where the little old lady has the luck dragon pinned down and is "doctoring" him and then the little ole man is next...remember her line?
"It's got to hurt if it’s to heal!"

Well it's like that in every home, practically all over this earth, I swear. We keep the weirdest things in them and for the longest time! I mean, please, how many nearly used tubes of antibiotic ointment do we really need lying around gathering dust?

Now, the only reason I know this is because of the gypsy fondly known as my honey! If we had not be-bopped all over this side of the country, I would be a good candidate for that new reality show "Hoarders" especially when it comes to the medicine cabinet. There is nothing like moving to get you to count all of the items that are the same in your cabinets! You can sing the sesame street song as you are counting! "Four of these things belong together..."

Once you finally get everything sorted out and laid out from one end of the house to another, colorful little piles aren't they, now is the time to sit down and make of list of the best and the worst things to keep in your medicine chest.

There are certain things you should always keep on hand. You can also buy a home remedy /first aid kit and be done with it but you will still find that you need other things not included in the red first aid kit. We will not even go over what is in that standard kit. This is specifically about the things you will need the most (the best) and the things you will try to use that will hurt instead of heal (the worst).

Let's start with kids; leashed and muzzled they will be fine. They will not grow and have fun and learn, mind you, but they will be fine. If you keep yours this way you will never need pretty sponge bob (isn't that an oxymoron) and my little pony band-aids. Otherwise, children are bound to fall, scratch, tear, cut, bump and hurt every bony prominence, elbows and knees being the most common.

Start off with soap and water and do it with the least amount and the least rubbing as possible...just a paper towel, carefully folded to the size of the injury with warm water and a little dot of liquid soap will do wonders to calm and assure the child that they are not dying. Dying is a thing they are sure is happening, more than likely brought on by older siblings gasps and exclamations of the many times THEY had nearly died!

Now, a secret....you guys in Britain, Canada, Philippines....shhhh....anyone listening? Are you sure? OKAY then, go out and get every last bottle of mercurochrome you can get your hands on and hoard it! I dont care if the expiration date is tomorrow! I swear it will NOT go bad! Man do I miss that stuff...It doesn't sting, turns lovely iridescent colours the kids love to see in the sunshine and rarely even has to have a band aid! If you have had all your wonderful mercury products taken off the shelves then get the iodine and blow on the poor baby cut…I hate iodine but it kills every germ and then some! Everything needs a band aid even non-visible wounds need a band-aid. Every child and grandparent knows this…it’s the parents budgets that are reluctant to accept this fact…which reminds me the next big envelope to the grandkids needs to have dollar store band aids in it J The advantage of mercurochrome is it keeps a protective layer over the scrape so when, twenty minutes later; your little head decides they really wanted the rainbow band aid not the superman band aid you can take it off and put another band aid on without hurting the wound bed. Little kids' earth shattering wounds are the only times you want them to stay clean, dry and scabbed. If it is bad enough for an urgent care visit...all bets are off.

The absolute WORST thing you can do for a child’s scrape is wash it, dry it, and put antibiotic ointment on it and a band-aid. Every time your little head wants a new Bandai all the stuff is gone so you start all over with the soap and water and the reassurance and the ointment and the band aid and please....I have new Stephen King book to read and HubPages to write...go away little boy/girl...you’re bothering me.

I was just kidding!!! Geez Louise!!! You guys!!!! At least I am not as bad as my baby sister, remember we teased her about stepping on the roly-polys till she cried? Well, when her two girls came along Becca would say to them," Oh did your fall down? Well come over here and I'll help you up."

My critical thinking point here is that the less you disturb the wound bed itself especially in the first 24 hours, the more chance you have of it getting granulation tissue and forming a nature’s band-aid. You guessed it, a scab. A kid’s favorite new toy. I can actually remember my first scab. It was so neat to see what it looked like underneath...Mom was not too impressed but it was cool!

So all that hullabalooey about the ointment is way overrated to my way of thinking. Children need to have mild scratches, scrapes, cuts clean and dry as a bone. Besides, it helps prepare them for anatomy and physiology! Also, if the wound bed is kept too moist, it will get infected, this is the exact opposite of everything I have written about deep tissue wounds, now, so don't get them mixed up. Skin tears, scratches, scrapes, shallow cuts, soap and water and dry as a bone OK?

What about rashes or bug bites or worse, poison ivy? My older sister, Mary, goodness, one summer she got into poison sumac and I was as miserable as she was. She was my best friend and if she could not play, I certainly was not going any further than her side. Problem was she was so miserable I know I pestered her to pieces but she was a good sister, even for all of that.

The best thing for poison ivy is still tepid baths with baking soda and witch hazel in the water as often as possible, even if it’s every hour the first two days and tons of calamine lotion. No aspirin of course because the worst cases of any rash caused by a poisonous plant can potentially cause an elevated temperature. (But the baby aspirin we got as kids never hurt us...as my head twitches...that a JOKE!!)

Rashes caused from allergic reaction require a physician’s examination however, more than likely the answer will be Benadryl and rest. Now this nurse will add more thing. The number one most important item in everyone’s medicine cabinet MUST be Desitin ointment. Not the creamy kind, not the off brand, not the look-a-likes but original Desitin ointment. Thick, sticky and smelly. Good stuff, Maynard :) Squeeze a bit onto your finger, rub your fingers together to get it all smeary and dab it over the areas just dab, do not rub and then leave it alone...don't wrap it, it will wash out; reapply as needed. You will be amazed and astounded what wonderful results come from Desitin!

Zinc Oxide (Desitin) is also the only thing to use on superficial burns after gently cool water wash and pat dry. That means only First degree burns…If it bubbles up you can use it, if it’s open you must see a physician.

The worst things you can use for every day “Poor thing, let me look at it” is not looking at it. Bumps on the head are especially fearful. Use good common sense. That bump NEEDS to be the size of a pigeon’s egg! Better that the bruise with fluid and blood inside (a hematoma) be visible on the outside than invisible on the outside. Always double check falls on the head…we know our favorite joke…”they are soft…they’ll bounce” but this cannot be stressed enough! Subdural hematomas are no joke! Watch for excessive sleepiness, change in itch of cry, change in mental status, increased drooling, change in sizes of pupils, one larger than the other, vomiting and inability to arouse. All of these and no palpable or visible bump and that is an emergency room visit, in fact, it is a 911 call.

If it is a bad bruise, you can see, and feel (palpable or palpate), the bump then if it makes you feel better rub an ice cube over it lightly. You can do this for, well never mind, the child isn’t going to allow it for long enough for the ice to cause harm anyway but just in case…no more than 3 minutes at a time, wait one minute reapply and no longer than 20 minutes tops.

I know that the petroleum based carcinogenic we all know and love are unfortunately not going anywhere until we use them all up and let the earth and sky breathe again but really people, let’s try not to put it on our kids skin, intact or otherwise, K? Don’t use the Vaseline as a skin barrier on babies…use desitin. Do not use Vaseline on dry skin, use lotion. However, Carmex works the best on cold sores and comes in a real lipstick tube and as long as it is not eaten, hey, every kid, even boys, love lips.

1.     Soap and water (I do not have to add after all this time that it is your hands you wash first then you wash your hands and again whenever they get soiled or wet? I could add gloves…six bucks a box…not a bad thing to have around at all!

2.     Band aides…for kids get the pretty ones and make sure they are easy to take on and off…NO I DO NOT WANT this left on for days….wound beds must be washed daily I the bath…take the band aid of in the bathtub…let the child do it…makes them feel so brave  J

3.     Mercurochrome or if it is totally gone from the face of the earth then get that horrible iodine and have a Popsicle handy.

4.     Desitin

5.     Baking Soda

6.     Witch Hazel

7.     Carmex…all kids love “Lips”

1. Not looking, touching, feeling, and smelling anything your loved ones tell you is hurting.

2. Not washing your hands first and often with soap and water.

3. Too much ice…this can actually freeze the childs skin

4. Carcinogenic petroleum based products such as Vaseline and kerosene (except "lips")